Author Archives: John Grant

Dragnet Girl

Any fan of the great Japanese Director Yasujiro Ozu would enjoy “Dragnet Girl (Hijôsen no onna),” an interesting 1933 silent movie that screened at the recent San Francisco Silent Film Festival (SFSFF). The previous Ozu films shown at the festival … Continue reading

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Seven Years Bad Luck

Max Linder, the gifted French comedian who may have ranked among the giants of silent film comedy had he not committed suicide, gives a perfect example of his considerable gifts in “Seven Years Bad Luck,” a film from 1921. Linder … Continue reading

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Extraordinary Adventures of Mr. West

One of the nice things about seeing the San Francisco Silent Film Festival (SFSFF) and the Pordenone (Italy) Silent Film Festival in is that I’ve seen some very funny and interesting Soviet films. The Pordenone festival showed a funny Anna … Continue reading

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Under the Lantern

Gerhard Lamprecht, prodigious film director and writer who worked from the silent cinema era to the late 1950s, can be compared to Hollywood’s Allan Dwan. Studios regarded Dwan and Lamprecht as sure-fire directors who could produce effective works in any … Continue reading

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Underground

So many interesting things happen in Anthony Asquith’s 1928 silent film “Underground,” that it’s difficult to categorize it as anything but quintessentially British. Most of the movie takes place at a London underground tube station, and the two main male … Continue reading

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The Epic of Everest

While watching “The Epic of Everest,” the 1924 silent film about the attempt by George Mallory and Andrew “Sandy” Irvine to reach the summit of Mount Everest, I became awed by the spectacle of the mountain while wondering about the … Continue reading

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The Good Bad Man

The San Francisco Silent Film Festival (SFSFF) screened “The Good Bad Man” at 10 AM on Saturday morning, May 31, 2014. I don’t know why this crowd-pleasing 1916 film featuring the acting talents of Douglas Fairbanks and Bessie Love played … Continue reading

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Cosmic Voyage

Director Vasili Zhuravlyov created a fun world that consists of a Soviet space institute and the treacherous valleys of the moon in the 1935 Soviet silent film “Kosmicheskiy Reys: Fantasticheskaya Novella,”  or “Cosmic Voyage.” The film premiered in the United … Continue reading

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Ramona

Prior to the screening of “Ramona,” a 1928 silent film starring Dolores Del Rio, the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra led the large crowd at the Castro Theater in a rendition of the song “Ramona.” The tango-influenced number put everyone … Continue reading

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The Parson’s Widow

The great Danish (and Swedish) director, Carl Theodore Dreyer, left a memorable trail of films, including the 1928 masterpiece “The Passion of Joan of Arc,” “Master of the House (1925)” and “Michael (1924).” Rather than clutter his films with elaborate … Continue reading

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